


Too Late

by heartlikeabomb



Category: Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27359728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartlikeabomb/pseuds/heartlikeabomb
Summary: Jay lets his frustration over a difficult case get the best of him.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Too Late

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote a couple of short pieces for Whumptober 2020 on Tumblr and figured I'd share them here. Would love to read some feedback if anyone has anything to offer. I haven't written in years and finally decided to get back in the game. At least a little bit.

They had been after this predator for almost six days. A man who was taking children off the street and abusing them until he tired of them and eventually murdered them. It was a case that would haunt them all for months. Every time they thought they were closer to catching him, they hit a dead end. Until finally, finally, the bastard made a mistake. Now they had an address.

Voight and Al began to circle around to the back of the building while silently instructing Erin, Jay, Kevin, and Adam to breach the front. Wanting to give the man no chance to run, they enter the building without announcing their presence. The team fans out, breaking into two groups while ensuring that doors are carefully covered. Reaching a back room, they see a man hunched over something on the floor, facing away from them. Despite this, there is no question that this is their target.

“Chicago Police! Daniel Porter, stop what you’re doing and put your hands up!” Jay shouts, his gun pointed carefully at the back of the man’s head.

The man freezes and slowly raises his hands. Jay immediately notices that they are stained with blood. Kevin and Erin move in to yank the man back and push his upper body to the floor. As soon as they do, they see what Porter was hunched over: the body of a young boy. The one they had been racing against the clock to rescue.

With shaking hands, Jay gently touches the boy’s neck in search of a pulse. He feels nothing. Jay’s heart nearly stops. They were so close. But they took too long. And now this boy was dead. 

“Notify forensics that we have a DOA,” he says to no one in particular.

Jay tunes out the other members of his team as they tightly cuff the man and haul him outside, reading him his, undeserved, in Jay’s opinion, Miranda rights.

All the emotions from the past six days begin to bubble up to the surface. Before Jay even realizes what he is doing, he is shouting and his fist is flying toward the concrete wall of the room.

At first, all he can feel is his heart pounding in his chest and hear the blood rushing through his ears. Then Jay becomes keenly aware of a pair of eyes staring at him from the doorway. Erin.

She looks at him not with disgust or fear, but empathy. She tentatively takes a few steps into the room and places a hand on Jay’s shoulder. His breaths are still coming fast and the adrenaline is still in the process of fading.

“Why? Why did we not get here in time? Why did that piece of shit have to kill him?”

Erin knows there are no good answers to Jay’s questions. She simply shakes her head and gently leads him out of the room. 

They eventually make it outside where the rest of the team stands, trying to process the last several minutes.

“You okay, Jay?” Kevin asks, somewhat redundantly, picking up on several cues that he was very much not okay.

Jay wordlessly nods, not yet trusting his voice. 

He begins to feel the pain seep into his bones and muscles and looks down to see his knuckles, red, angry, and bleeding. He quickly covers them with his other hand and re-directs his attention to the rest of the group.

Voight takes a deep breath. “Get back to the district, get your reports done now while it’s fresh in your mind, and then go home so we can put this all behind us.”

The team starts to disassemble but before Jay can walk away, Voight approaches him. 

“Are you going to say something or do I need to?”

Jay feels Voight’s eyes burning into him as he subconsciously keeps his damaged hand covered and resists the urge to give in. “About what?”

“I can’t have one of my detectives running around with a broken hand. It’s going to end up being a liability.”

“It’s not bro-“

“Get it checked out.”

Jay opens his mouth to protest again before Voight cuts him off.

“I mean it, Jay. Go now.”

Erin, watching the entire interaction, quietly takes Jay’s uninjured hand. “I’ll take him.”

Voight nods again and immediately walks away.

They walk in silence toward the car before Jay finally speaks up.

“We’re not actually going to med, right?”

Erin gives a short laugh. “You’re kidding right? You just smashed your hand into concrete. Of course I’m taking you in.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it. I didn’t even hit it that hard.”

Erin stops. “Give me your hand.”

Jay hesitantly places his bloody and rapidly-swelling hand in hers. She takes hold of it and begins to press around his knuckles.

Jay sucks in a breath and immediately Erin responds with a smirk, “Mmhmm. You’re getting checked out.”

Jay and Erin walk into a thankfully quiet ED waiting room. Erin waves to the woman working the admit desk and walks into the ED, quickly finding Maggie, who was wrapping up some charting.

“Detectives – what can I do for you?”

Jay doesn’t answer right away so Erin takes over. “Got anyone that can take a look at his hand quick?” Erin takes his forearm and lifts his hand up into the light.

Maggie nods. “Want me to grab Will?”

“That would be great; thank you Maggie.”

Jay groans. He’s not looking forward to having to explain all of this to his brother after everything that has already happened.

They spot Will walking out of a treatment room a few moments later. Maggie waves them over. “Can I grab you a second? Your brother needs to get checked out. Treatment four is open.”

A look of concern flashes over Will’s face as he approaches. “What happened?” 

Jay reluctantly shows him his hand. “Hand versus concrete. Concrete won.”

Will smiles, knowing that Jay is definitely not here by his own choice. “Ah I see. Come on,” he replies, taking them to the treatment room. 

Jay sits stiffly on the bed while Will puts on a pair of gloves. 

“May I?” Will asks, wanting Jay’s assent before touching his hand.

Jay gives a slight eye roll but nods.

Will begins to palpate the joints and his a particularly sore spot when he reaches the knuckle on Jay’s pinkie finger. 

“So you want to tell me how this happened?”

“It’s not important,” Jay deadpans. 

Will nods silently, knowing that the conversation was not going to go any further.

“Well, I’ll clean this up and we’ll get a quick x-ray so we can see what we’re dealing with.”

Will grabs a syringe filled with saline and a few 4x4 gauze pads and sets out to wash the abrasions on Jay’s knuckles. The three of them remain in tense silence while Will cleans the blood from Jay’s hand.

“And that’s that. I’m going to go grab a tech to get that portable x-ray set up and we’ll go from there.” 

Will leaves Jay and Erin in the treatment room and Erin takes the opportunity to talk to her partner.

“I know today was…well…definitely not good. Are you gonna be okay?”

Jay nods. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Erin eyes him suspiciously and Jay can only take it for a moment.

“I’ll be fine. It just…I just…sometimes it all just comes up at once. Seeing that kid on the floor…it nearly broke me.”

“It looks like it did break you,” Erin said with a slight smile, motioning to his hand. “But I get it. It fucking sucks. But bottom line, we did a good thing today. We got that piece of shit off the street. And you know prison will be no cake walk for him.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jay responds, offering no further elaboration.

Erin nods knowingly. “It’s going to take some time to recover from this one.”

Will comes back with the x-ray tech. They arrange Jay’s hand on the film and within seconds, get a picture up on the screen.

Will nods his head. “Looks good, no breaks. You got lucky.”

“So can I get out of here?”

Will chuckles. “Yeah, you can get out of here. Make sure you put some ice on it to help the swelling go down. And take some Ibuprofen or Tylenol for the pain.”

“Yes, doctor,” Jay says, hopping off the gurney and making a beeline for the door.

“And no more punching walls, huh?”

Jay turns around with a dumbfounded look on his face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”


End file.
